Paid of Our House, No Big Deal

(Photo: I don’t think he bank people expected me in my work jeans and moldy old vans to walk up to the counter with this request)

Actually it is a big deal!

BAM! Take that New Year… I think this satisfies any New Years resolutions I might have felt the need to make for at least a few years (if I made New Years resolutions that is).

It’s weird. All I can say is it really doesn’t feel like a big deal yet. We don’t feel any different. Our habits won’t change. We won’t take any grand trips (did that last year… before we got the chickens).

I know it’s a big deal though… Intellectually I realize how much that sets us apart from most everyone I know. I can only think of one close friend or family member who doesn’t rent or have a mortgage… And they bought for cash with an inheritance windfall 20 years ago. So it’s not like we come from a group of wealthy people who make a habit of this.

I will point out:

I am “lucky” to have made a good choice in career that pays a good wage, and to have had scholarships and family support in my schooling, so we were able to start my post school career with relatively little debt (but there was debt…and my first paychecks were devoted almost entirely to paying it off until it was gone).

But other that, we’re pretty normal people! We don’t deny ourselves. If we really want or need something we get it.

On top of paying off the house in the last 4 years we have:

1. Paid for our “location” wedding and housing for guests
2. Paid for our honeymoon
3. Paid off my new-to-me car at 35k (I DO like nice things)… a requirement when my transmission went out and I was working 2 hours from home
4. Paid for rent, etc. on our house and my apartment while I worked said job 2 hours from home
5. Taken a couple small trips for family/professional purposes
6. Paid off those student loans I mentioned
7. Moved to a new state!
8. Fixed up our new house… Still a work in progress… Forever
9. Bought a tractor with tools. Cost almost as much as my CAR
10. Loaded our emergency fund with enough money to support a year of no work at our current general standard of living (confidently now that we have the house paid off)
11. Took a 3 week trip to India and Nepal, with a nearly equally expensive 4 night stop in NYC.

When I look at the list of what we’ve accomplished … I’m not really quite sure how we did it!

I can tell you we honestly don’t compare ourselves to others (much), so there is no need to keep up with the Jones’s or any of that. We DO wonder at how others do what they do sometimes, and in that sense we compare I guess, but there’s no competition. I guess all those years of being weirdos who didn’t fit in and learning not compare yourself to others pays off in this respect.

If we didn’t care what people thought about us as oddball youngins we sure as heck don’t care as secure financially adults. And as on might say, it may appear to some as a hovel, but it’s *our* hovel and we own all of it.

I rambled on and had some point I tried to make. Then site glitched and didn’t save post. I forgot what I was getting at so I’ll end here now 🙂